NY Man freed after 24 years of incarceration due to DA dishonesty

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Ruddy Quezada, a 54-year-old man wrongfully convicted of a deadly drive-by shooting in 1993, has won a $4.5 million settlement from New York state, according to court papers.

Quezada spent 24 years in prison for murder before winning his freedom in 2015 when, after decades of failed appeals, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office conceded that prosecutors involved in his case had withheld critical evidence during his trial.

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At issue was the testimony of the case’s single eyewitness, a man named Sixto Salcedo. Salcedo recanted his testimony after defense lawyers tracked him down in the Dominican Republic in 2001. In a sworn affidavit, Salcedo said he had been coerced into testifying falsely against Quezada when a New York Police Department detective threatened him with jail time if he didn’t.

ProPublica reported on Quezada’s then pending appeal in 2013 as part of a larger examination of prosecutorial misconduct in New York City.

Salcedo had been arrested on what’s known as a material witness order, a powerful, discretionary tool used by prosecutors to hold reluctant witnesses in custody until they agree to testify. Prosecutors at Quezada’s original 1993 trial told the court that Salcedo had agreed to testify on his own accord. They did not share a copy of the material witness order signed off on by a judge with the defense.

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In 2003, Quezada appealed for a new trial, citing Salcedo’s recantation. In legal filings, the district attorney’s office called Salcedo’s claim incredible and insisted he testified truthfully. To back up this argument, the office said there was no evidence of a material witness order used to compel Salcedo’s testimony.

“There is no copy of a material witness order in the file,” Marie-Claude Wrenn, a veteran prosecutor who handled the appeal, wrote in court papers, adding that Shaban did not recall one being necessary.

A year later, documents uncovered during the appeals process showed, Wrenn discovered the material witness order in the trial file. She gave it to her boss. The office still did not turn the order over to Quezada and continued to deny its existence for another seven years.

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